


Centrifuge

by tnico



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, Omega Jaskier | Dandelion, Omega Lambert, Other, Prompt Fic, and no sex at all, i'll be real this is mostly a collection of vibes, possibly there's a tag for the genre but i don't know it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23692615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/pseuds/tnico
Summary: (For the prompt: "It’s the first winter following the death of Lambert’s mate, Aiden. Since Alpha/Omega pairs mate for life, Lambert won’t take another alpha—but he’s also very clearly depressed and shutting his brothers out. The remaining Witchers of Kaer Morhen are all alphas, and seem to only be capable of putting him more on edge, but Jaskier, Geralt’s omega, is able to get through to him.")He's got to be delirious, he thinks.
Relationships: (past), Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Jaskier | Dandelion & Lambert
Comments: 13
Kudos: 185
Collections: Witcher Kink Meme (Dreamwidth)





	Centrifuge

**Author's Note:**

> i went with mature for this one, but i'm honestly unsure if i crossed the line into explicit or not. mention if it seems so!
> 
> [original prompt:](https://witcherkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/429.html?thread=346541) It’s the first winter following the death of Lambert’s mate, Aiden. Since Alpha/Omega pairs mate for life, Lambert won’t take another alpha—but he’s also very clearly depressed and shutting his brothers out. The remaining Witchers of Kaer Morhen are all alphas, and seem to only be capable of putting him more on edge, but Jaskier, Geralt’s omega, is able to get through to him.
> 
> (yes, once again i have written for the Fandom Sex Universe and yet spend the majority of my time dwelling on how additional gender dynamics would influence the already well-realized politically distinct world of the witcher because i am the big nerd, it is me)

"There's toys, of course." Jaskier says.

Lambert swallows dryly. "No, I-- no."

(--because they kept locking him in that _fucking_ freezing flat-stone hellhole with a tool like that to sweat it out every round of his personal hell but instead he always spent it pressing himself flat against the wall dripping and shuddering and re-opening the bite-marks through his lip _again_ before it _ever_ got a chance to heal and every fucking time he _didn't_ because he would never have opted for _any_ of this if he'd just had a _choice_ and life was _never, ever_ _fair_ and the only thing he had _left_ was his own damn stubborness so if Destiny was just going to keep grinding its heel into his balls his _entire fucked life_ he at least wouldn't give it the _fucking_ satisfaction of seeing him _get off on it_ \--)

And he'd never, not once. He'd always only done things with actual people, and at most used his own hand when an actual person wasn't around. And that was a point of _pride_ , of himself out-stubborning his fucking lot in life, so the sudden lance of _no_ that has nothing to do with his body and everything to do with his head but still steals his breath at the thought of it doesn't even make _sense._

He'd told Aiden just once, that he'd never. Before they were even together, or anything like that. The words had gone halting the way they sometimes went, when he told Aiden about those kind of things. The memories and thoughts too sensitive and visceral to expose all at once to the open air. He'd had to take pauses to draw his thoughts back in when they rippled out; too quick and too defensive and pushing him to be offensive just to give himself an out from this.

Telling Aiden hadn't felt anything like pride either. But telling him shit like that never needed to feel like pride, not from the start, because Aiden would always pull the weight on that one whenever Lambert told him those rawly-phrased, raw-feeling things. He'd laughed his head off and clapped Lambert on the back and told him he didn't even know why he'd be surprised, really, that Lambert had somehow managed to find a way to be an absolutely relentless cuss about designation, too.

Those abrupt recollections of Aiden crashing into his thoughts, his-face-his-voice-the-feel-of-his-hands, have been more than enough to kill any shred of sexual desire he's been able to summon _since_ so far. But biology's a bitch and as-always determined to make one of him when heat comes around, so instead he's just winded again by another crash of an abrupt sense memory. The lapping movement of Aiden's thrusts when it was winding down and the heat burned low, mindlessly following the rhythm of the action like he did when he was exhausted (and Lambert made such good _use_ of that previously innocuous trail-habit, on top of the always heady luxury of finally having a go with someone who could match the witcher stamina). The both of them shaky and too hoarse for words. Threading his fingers through his Alpha's sweat-soaked hair and rocking back, letting the steadiness of it carry them into a soft landing to being passed out next to each other from all the marathon-fucking. Routine worn into the years (they've spent--) they spent together in the way that was good, the trust you can put in your compass needle.

He shudders at it, his thoughts fraying as the composite memory of how _good_ it could be (and it could be _so good_ ) sends a flush of warmth from the base of his neck to pulsing down his spine, and he can feel himself getting wetter as it finally shivers out of him in the sudden twitching movements of his toes and fingers. Calling Aiden his compass is more right than he wants to admit-- he's still here and he's alone again and he aches for Aiden in the old way he used to on top of the way he aches for him now that he'll always be gone and he's never felt more directionless.

* * *

Heat. One of those terms he got right away even when he was a kid because it sounds just like it seems. But he didn't get it, even with all those bloody-mouthed raging bone-ache memories of those times _before_ and being _without_ , some of his worst even after his ages on the Path. Because they always turn out to be softened by the haze and the distance of his mind in that moment because heat, it's _heat_ , he never really _gets_ it until he's burning up inside again.

He's got to be delirious, he thinks, and it's piteous, he _knows_ it's piteous to beg the voice-blessed-press-of-skin that sears while it soothes like the worst kinds of salves to get Aiden, to find him, to bring him please bring him but he can't _help_ but beg because it aches and it _aches_ and he wants so, so bad.

The other one here, the presence his dazed, grasping conscious can only recognize at this point as _not him_ , sometimes coaxes his head up from their shoulder, where he's been panting and whining against and occasionally mindlessly mouthing at their collarbone, to press a rough-hewn mug of water to his lips. He doesn't know how it's getting refilled, but he's distantly aware when he drinks each time that it's good he's getting liquids because he's been leaking down his thighs and leaking from his eyes in the way he always did locked in the room and waiting it out and just like he used to he _hates_ that he does it but can't _stop_ it and can't _help it_ because he _aches_ and Aiden's _not here,_ the touch-pressing-soothing-humming is _not him_ and it feels like he's burning up from frustration and all the want left frustrated and tangled in that emptiness inside him that makes him _ache_ and leaves him _aching_ and maybe this fire inside him will kill him, maybe he'll burn up and die from it.

 _Not him_ keeps making soothing noises and gasping and telling him he's sorry, he's so sorry.

"If you're so fucking sorry you'd _help me_ and bring him _back_ ," Lambert bites out, not even sure what exactly he means at this point, just letting his anger direct him into saying what feels most right. Because when he can make his skittering thoughts focus on something more than the wants of his body, there's another ache that feels like it's festering inside him, something pierced and gushing out in poisoned-blood pulses. He can't even stop the snarl at the start of his words from spiralling into a begging whine that cracks his voice, because he _is_ piteous, and he just feels too miserable to even stay mad, and if he's not mad all that's _left_ is the other fire all through his body and his misery. And then he thinks maybe _not him_ starts crying too, for a bit, and it doesn't even make him feel better that he's probably the one who made it happen. It's just another frustrating, miserable ache on top of it all and he misses, he misses, he _misses_ Aiden.

The voice says _he knows_. The voice says _he's so sorry_. The voice says _here, shhh_ , and _that's it, drink_.

"I hate this," Lambert finally sobs, because he's just too-over-filled on the helpless frustration and it's making his misery leak out from him like everything else is in the waves of heat, cracking open his walls too wide for him to repair because the one person who could fix it isn't _here_ and has left him unspooling.

"Oh, I am with you there. I hate this too, believe me, I _absolutely_ hate this too," _not him_ assures him.

Weirdly enough, that's the first thing the voice says that makes him feel anything like better.

* * *

After the heat finally breaks and he's slowly drifting back from being a helpless body and into his own mind again, he's jolted the rest of the way to fully aware by the sudden dissonance in his recognition.

Because he's up against another warm, sweat-stuck body and sore all over like he is after his usual run of heats, but the body-soreness isn't the satisfying-pulling-stretch from getting fucked but good but the stringy, tense lines of how his muscles got after going through heats _before_ and _alone_ when all he could do was curl into himself and try to untense through the cramps because he knows it'll make him sore and still tensing through them every time again anyway. But then it's not paired with the pounding headache and the blood drying on his lower lip or the rasp of the dehydration that always went in hand.

Because-- he had someone, this time. It wasn't Aiden, because it could never be Aiden again. But it was someone.

"Look at that. Managed to survive," he says, keeping his volume low. It feels like being any louder would shatter something here in the evening-darkened room, where the only noise for a while has been measured-and-slowing breaths.

"Oh, grace by the sweet song of Melitele," Jaskier sighs, and maybe he gets how precarious it all feels too, because he's quiet as well. He slumps his own head down onto Lambert's shoulder in a reverse of the position they'd spent most of their time in, clothing off for the skin-contact and pressed into each other against the headboard. "That was dreadful, you know. Just dreadful. I thought I knew what I'd be in for, but now I've got _even more_ certain opinions regarding your personal choices."

Lambert winces at the pull on his still-sensitive skin as he separates them, the stickiness of shared sweat and other fluids the sort of mundane post-heat irritation to cling to that reminds him this isn't _like_ in that room, this was a heat where he _had_ someone else, where he _chose_ to do it like that and not because _they locked him in and wouldn't let him out_.

"You offered," he reminds Jaskier, because that helps him remember too. Just because he spent the heat empty doesn't mean he didn't choose to. Didn't mean he was alone.

"That I did," Jaskier agrees, "And I'm nevertheless satisfied to have done it. Really, Lambert, I _hope_ you would have allowed ones of your brothers to aid you through this if I hadn't been there. I can't _imagine_ how horrid it must have been, struggling through it alone."

"No, I know me," Lambert admits contemplatively as he scrapes the corner of the sheet over the dried mess on his body. "If anyone smelling like alpha had gotten within ten feet of me I'd've dead-straight bitten their dick off."

Jaskier wheezes an inelegant laugh. "You know, I've never told you this, but I've always found you to have a delightfully frank approach to your phrase."

"That's me. Always here to please."

Jaskier switches to pensive the fluid-fast way his emotions tend to do on his face and bites his lip. "On such the subject: It's just, after we've gone together through all this, you know, this bonding through sharing in the heart's wounds as in one's tears--"

Oh, so he hadn't imagined the crying, Lambert notes absently. He's waiting for Jaskier to prattle his way to his fucking point, being too exhausted to object to the usual twaddle. He considers summoning the energy to feel bad about it, but he's pretty sure it was less the result of Lambert's vague recollection of snapping at him and more the consequence of Jaskier's baser doughy-soft nature that attracts him to bardery and writing his horrible lies about Geralt, considering how out of it Lambert was at the time.

Jaskier's still meandering, but finally he hits it. "I would like, I think, to be granted a favor in return--"

Lambert suddenly feels cold in a way that has nothing to do with drying sweat, sitting back on his heels on the mattress. "I told you no at first. I _never_ fucking asked you to--"

"-- _And_ have you hear me out," Jaskier pushes over Lambert's reflexive snarl firmly. "For a minute or so, with the promise you'll at least give it a level of sincere consideration. As, just like I consider this last horrible eternity we managed to conquer together, a favor to a friend."

Lambert goes silent, eyeing Jaskier suspiciously.

"About survival-- surviving. I am lucky enough to not have suffered the unimaginable and lost one I loved so dear to me, but as a studied bard and experienced practitioner I'd consider myself somewhat of a journeyman in the matter of lost loves."

Lambert mouths 'experienced practitioner' to himself while he does the usual wait-out-the-witless-wittering. Jaskier's somberness breaks for a quick smile as he catches Lambert doing it.

"I'm of the opinion that when one has suffered losing a love, though it is certainly a loss in the sense of tragedy, there is-- well, I suppose I'd say no matter how low you feel, there is still a point to surviving on. Because in the time you spent with them they changed you, and all the ways they made you grow and made you good are still there. That part of them, you'll only ever lose it you lose yourself. It's their gift to you, and you know it's terribly ungrateful to allow a loved one's gift to waste away."

He frowns. "Not to call you _ungrateful_ , of course, I just--"

"No," Lambert interrupts, "I heard it like you meant to say it. I- yeah. I'll think about that." He pauses for a moment, then continues dryly. "Though I'll be honest, that really seemed like this is another favor to me, Jaskier."

It's odd, to sit bare-ass naked on a bed with a man who he's not ever going to fuck and didn't grow up with and not feel in any way vulnerable about it. He allows some of what he's feeling to school his face, because hey, that's friendship, he supposes. This is far from the strangest thing they've survived in their relatively brief stint at it. Barely makes the list, really.

Jaskier smiles back at him, the impishness to it putting a bit of spirit back into his face. "I'll take my toll in tales of Geralt's youthful follies over a night of drinks, how about."

"Deal," Lambert replies immediately.

**Author's Note:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> me, gesturing to my screen: my doc name for this fic is "les' pile on em issues" and fellas if that ain't what ya in for,
> 
> for all that i've been a reader since i was way too young to be reading the stuff i gleefully read, i've never been much for the actual writing of fanfic. fanged was my first for-real go at it, actually!
> 
> but i've been having a lot of fun with dabbling in answering prompts and writing in complete POV! i'm actually an mmo roleplayer by biggest writing hobby and have been since i was, you may sense a pattern, way too young to be playing improv with strangers on the internet. it's been gratifying to see all that play has dividends in my attempts at crafting me some non co-op narratives! or imo, anyway, i've been quite personally pleased with what i've been putting out.
> 
> if you liked my fic, please remember to leave kudos! 
> 
> (｡òᴗ-)7✧ i like seeing who liked my stuff.


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